Getty to return Nazi-looted painting

LOS ANGELES, March 30 (UPI) -- California's Getty Museum says it plans to return "Landscape With Cottage and Figures," a 17th century painting looted by Nazis, to the rightful owner's heir.

The Los Angeles Times said the Getty is the first North American museum to agree to give back a painting to Marei von Saher, the daughter-in-law of Jacques Goudstikker, a Dutch-Jewish art dealer whose collection of more than 1,000 works was scattered after he fled the 1940 Nazi invasion of Holland.

The museum said it purchased the painting by Pieter Molijn "in good faith" at a 1972 auction, but declined to say how much it paid for the painting.

"It is always encouraging to see an important cultural institution like the Getty Museum decide to do the right thing for Holocaust victims and their heirs," von Saher said in a statement issued to the Times Monday.

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